(It just smells different!)

Anyone remember the Cypherpunk movement?

Those were the people who invented anonymous remailers, were the first to deploy PGP on a wider scale and were generally a crypto-political movement to establish cryptography (and privacy) in the then nascent public Internet.

The Cypherpunk Manifesto by Eric Hughes starts:

Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.

and it concludes:

Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act. The act of encryption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its violence. Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it makes possible.

That was 1997, and times have proven the Cypherpunks right. Our privacy is under threat all over, be it under the guise of protecting society or with the express goal to use your personal data to sell your more stuff.

It is important to understand the checks and balances in society - it is natural for all players - government included - to pursue their own goals, and we cannot expect benevolent protection. That's why we have segregation of duties between the legislative, judicative and executive branches and that's why free speech is essential. Your rights are something you have to stand up for.

We also have learned that privacy, quite possibly, isn't free. It usually comes with an opportunity cost attached but these days it can cost money. (GPG, TOR and JAP are free. Others like Hushmail come with a price tag attached if you want to use them fully.)

Whether you want to invest your time or your money: It's time to encrypt your hard drive, your e-mail (all of it), time to insist on your privacy and to defend your right to do so. Notably, not even that is for free.

Time for a new Cypherpunk movement.

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